Ink jet printing technology provides printers with variable capability of printing ink. There are several jetting technologies including thermal (such as, bubble jet) and piezoelectric that are used in ink jet printing. In this context, tiny droplets of ink are ejected from a printing head and deposited onto a page. In a thermal jet head, a heat source vaporizes a substance, such as ink to create a bubble. The expanding bubble causes a droplet to form, and the droplet is ejected from the head. Piezoelectric technology uses a piezo material. Application of an electric potential to the piezo material causes a warping of the piezo material to increase the pressure in the head, and thus eject a drop of a substance from the nozzle. The drop is emitted from a tiny hole in the jet cartridges. The cartridges may contain any number of nozzles. For example, the jet cartridges may have six hundred holes, arranged in two rows of three hundred, or any other configuration and/or number of holes, as needed.
The adoption of jet-based patterning techniques has been found to be useful in the production of other articles of manufacture including electrical components, such as transistors and other devices. Still further, indicia or other markings have been printed on substrates other than paper, such as plastic film, metal substrates, and the like.
Jetting technology has also been used to deposit live cells and extracellular matrix proteins for forming cell patterns on substrates (Calvert, Science 318 (Oct. 12, 2007), 208-209; Roth et al., Biomaterials 25 (2004), 3707-3715). Thus, the utility of jetting technology is being realized in new fields of endeavor. Further innovation utilizing jet-based technologies may prove to play an important role in biomedical diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and biomedical, chemical, and life sciences research in the future.